In the ever-evolving landscape of technology and entrepreneurship, launching a new product is both an art and a science. In a recent episode of “Stimulus Tech Talk,” hosted by Nathan Whittacre, CEO of Stimulus Technologies, Costa Lakoumentas, the visionary founder of KLIKBOKS, shared his wealth of expertise on navigating the challenging journey of bringing a new product to market.
Stimulus Tech Talk: Innovation Unleashed: Expert Tips on Launching a New Product with Special Guest Costa Lakoumentas
Inception and Innovation: Developing a New Product
As Costa states, “Necessity…the true mother of all invention.” In this episode, Costa discusses the genesis of developing KLIK Communications and the company’s innovative wireless screen-sharing solution. The idea sprang from his personal experience of meeting after meeting being delayed by someone’s inability to share their screen due to lack of the correct hardware or software ,incompatible programs, or simple lack of screen-sharing capability. Both Nathan and Costa emphasize that concept to fruition requires a passionate entrepreneur looking to tackle real-world problems.
The Importance of a Product Requirements Document
Nathan posed the question of how one determines the steps to take to launch a brand new product into the marketplace. Costa stated that developing a Product Requirements Document (PRD) is an essential first step in product development. This document outlines exactly what resources are needed to produce a product including cost and materials as well as personnel such as engineers, product developers, marketing experts, etc. This document not only shapes the process of development, but will also show if an idea is far too reaching for the resources available.
Navigating the Waters of Development to Fundraising
The conversation explores the intricacies of product development, fundraising, and risk management. Costa underscores the delicate balance between technical expertise and business acumen, highlighting the importance of involving engineers early in the process. The discussion provides insights into the costs of bringing a new product to market and the vital role of fundraising from investors.
The podcast delves into the challenges of startup funding, emphasizing the critical role confidence and capability play in attracting investors. Costa and Nathan discuss the importance of long-term commitment and the harsh reality that lack of capital can be a significant obstacle for startups.
The Ability to Pivot
Like many businesses, the COVID-19 shutdowns took a toll on a business geared toward in-person meetings. KLIK had to go back to the drawing board to come up with a product that could now accommodate the immediate and growing need for remote meetings. The KLIKBOKS Hub allows users to stream using multiple angles and cameras, allowing for multiple speakers and a more dynamic visual approach. These tools are particularly needed in the world of academics where a professor needs more than just their talking head to be visible on the screen.
Entrepreneurial Wisdom and Diversification Strategies
The conversation concludes with insights on entrepreneurship, business ownership, and product development. Costa discusses the constant need for pivoting and adapting to changing circumstances, emphasizing the importance of having the right mindset for business success. The discussion closes with a focus on expanding business offerings through product diversification.
Costa Lakoumentas’s journey is a source of inspiration and practical insights for anyone navigating the exciting yet complex terrain of entrepreneurship. Tune in to conversations with industry experts to unlock the secrets to a successful product launch, learning from those who have not only faced challenges head-on but have turned them into stepping stones toward innovation and success.
Stimulus Tech Talk: Innovation Unleashed: Expert Tips on Launching a New Product with Special Guest Costa Lakoumentas – transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, product, prd, great, company, worked, engineers, hardware, conveyor belt, build, plugged, engineering, capabilities, created, screen sharing, solution, thought, market, capital, technology
SPEAKERS
Intro, Costa Lakoumentas, Nathan Whittacre
Intro 00:00
You’re listening to Stimulus Tech Talk. A conversation based podcast created by stimulus technologies covers a range of topics related to business and technology.
Costa Lakoumentas 00:09
So thank you very much happy to be here.
Nathan Whittacre 00:13
Hello, welcome to Stimulus Tech Talk. I’m Nathan Whittacre. CEO of Stimulus Technologies and I’m very excited to introduce our guest for today, Costa, from KLIK and just I’ll read a bio real quick, but welcome to the podcast. And Costa is a dynamic, articulate and methodical with proven ability to manage and motivate across engineering product management, sales and marketing teams to drive new product development, increased revenues, develop new business opportunities and grow brand equity. He has extensive experience in Product Lifecycle Management, development of product portfolios and new product definition based on market requirements and has managed product marketing activities worldwide. Costa is also a member of IEE, or I Triple E Institute of electric, Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and has authored several white papers focused on around audio video and streaming technology. So again, welcome. So um, so you know, according to your bio, and a different things, you worked at several different companies in the past, what was your catalyst for deciding to found and start your own company?
Costa Lakoumentas 01:29
Well, it was necessity, you know, the true mother of all invention, right? In fact, you know, I worked for a company where I was in meetings, I would say six hours of out of every eight every day. And, you know, meetings with product developers, product managers, marketing managers, it all kinds of folks. And as I was stuck in this meeting room, you know, we had a screen as everyone did, and a computer in there, and a video conferencing setup and so forth. Yet every meeting, someone had to present something, and they always had trouble getting on the screen, whether it was they brought in a thumb drive, and they plugged it into the local PC and whatever, it didn’t have the fonts loaded or something else. Or they were trying to connect with the cable that didn’t have the right cable, the right adapter, et cetera, the settings. And when I left there, I was looking at all kinds of different opportunities. And I thought, you know, maybe this is the right time for me to solve that problem for myself, and possibly turn it into a business. And that’s really when I started KLIK, and KLIK became synonymous with wireless screen sharing in a business or education environment. And that’s really, that’s really what motivated me to do is solve my own problem. And there’s got to be other people out there that have the same problem. And perhaps I can add some value there.
Nathan Whittacre 03:01
So, when you were, you know, starting in this idea of the project, were you know, was there other solutions out there? Or was this like a ground up novel idea?
Costa Lakoumentas 03:13
Well, great question. It really, there was one dominant solution, but it had a what I consider to be a fatal flaw in that it was a completely hardware solution. So it was a two ends one a receiver one, a transmitter and the transmitter was hardware, and it had to be plugged into the device. So that immediately restricts you to devices that have that particular interface. At that time, it happened to be USB type A, but doesn’t matter, you know, the minute you have a hardware interface, it tells me two things. Number one, it doesn’t scale very well. Number two, you’re always dependent on the hardware, the source hardware, and whatever protocol that particular manufacturer has. And then, of course, we also, you know, since 2007, with the launch of the iPhone, we’ve been part of this world of, you know, a phones and tablets finding their way into, you know, workspaces, more and more, and they don’t have any physical, you know, connectivity, per se,
Nathan Whittacre 04:18
or they’re different, you know, all of them are a little bit different.
Costa Lakoumentas 04:20
Absolutely. So, my mission was to eliminate that part of it to actually come up with a soft transmitter, software base transmitter, also support the native protocols that were there, for the casual user, but really build on that with a professional solution.
Nathan Whittacre 04:37
Okay. And so kind of walk me through the engineering process. Was this sitting you sitting in your basement, you know, playing around with different devices, or did you have a team that you worked with? How did you kind of walk me through that that process?
Costa Lakoumentas 04:50
Well, and you know, and that’s really kind of the perennial question with with product development is, you know, how do you go from the idea to the proof of concept, to the engineering sample, and on into production, right? And, and, you know, it’s it’s very difficult these days, when you have a product of that level of sophistication, you know, you’ve got hardware, you’ve got firmware, software, protocols, some licensed components to it, you know, how do you bring all that together? For me, it was a little bit easier, because I’ve been working in product development, product management and manufacturing for a long time, and had several engineering contacts all over the place. And, and especially in China, and Taiwan, which are places, obviously, that people manufacture products, but Taiwan in particular is, is really the source of a lot of IP. And having connections, there really helped me move the project along much faster than it would have otherwise.
Nathan Whittacre 06:05
Okay, so you had a, you had a network, and, you know, in developing this kind of talk me through the type of people that you would need to develop a new product like that, you know, if you had an idea, you know, is it? Is it just hardware engineers? Is it a combination of hardware and software? What do you
Costa Lakoumentas 06:24
You know, it all starts with this one piece of paper that we call the PRD, the Product Requirements Document. And, and, you know, inventions have come along, and they’ve succeeded, even without the PRD. But really, these days, especially with product development, being so complex, in you know, in the technology sector, in particular, you really need that PRD in the PRD is where you specify every facet of that product, the feature set, the physical, you know, characteristics of the product, what happens when you pull a power plug out of the wall, and plug it back in? Is it back on is it back to where it used to be? Is it rebooting So, so the PRD is where you really have to spend the bulk of your time. And as you go through developing the PRD, now, you’re really laying out a specification for your engineering team to get involved. It’s a dangerous thing to get the engineering team involved before you fully formed the PRD. And it’s also a little bit dangerous if you go ahead and develop a PRD without having any knowledge of what is technically capable possible, right. So it’s a fine balance, but you really have to find a team, you’ve got to find, if maybe if you’re more on the technical side, you need to have someone who’s maybe more on the consumer product side, or on the product side, or on the user side, if you’re more of a user not technical, you need a technical resource. So you can at least bounce ideas back and forth off of one another.
Nathan Whittacre 07:58
So, why did you say it’s dangerous to have engineers involved up front on these designs?
Costa Lakoumentas 08:04
Well, because, you know, our mission as engineers is to create what you’re asking for. And what you’re asking for may be outrageous, it may not even be possible, we may have to go, we may have to start at research, you know, R&D, research and development. Well, you want to actually, if you want to increase the potential for success of bringing your product to market, you’ve got to try to decrease the risk of research. Because if it’s, if it’s known, and if it has been researched, and it’s been perfected before, you can still take it and morph it into a different package, or add, you know, build on that research. But if you have to start with a research project, it’s very dangerous, and it’s very uncertain. So, again, getting an engineer involved, unless that engineer has the business acumen to say to you, wait a minute, what you’re asking for is going to cost too much. It’s going to take too long, it’s going to break down, it’s going to you know, and there are engineers that do that. But you can’t be guaranteed to that, because we’re all kind of siloed in our own area of expertise. And as an engineer, my job would be well, you want to put a man on the moon, you didn’t say anything about you don’t want to spend a trillion dollars. So I’ll do whatever you need done.
Nathan Whittacre 09:28
Gotcha. So let’s talk about cost. I mean, I’m sure that you know, with bringing a new product, like what you’re talking about, there’s significant amount of costs. So talk me through your journey to to justify to yourself, did you bring in partners that you you know, I know, there’s lots of venture capital money for this stuff like this. I mean, maybe talk about yours, and then what you see today as you’re helping companies with these ideas, so
Costa Lakoumentas 09:52
I mean, the the first consideration is that most businesses fail because they’re undercapitalized new businesses So, and that’s, that’s very true. Even if you feel that you’ve got a few bucks stashed away, and you’re going to put that into the project, and then you run out of that money. That’s usually the end of your endeavor. So, I think raising money is from investors is very important for most inventors, or startups. And, but I had no experience in doing that at all, you know, I was involved in hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trade and managing products and bringing products to market and sales and marketing, worldwide distribution, all that sort of stuff, but I’d never raised any money. So it was very uncomfortable for me to think about, you know, am I willing to give up a percentage of my business just for the short term relief of getting this capital from somewhere else. And so I funded it myself, which, you know, it’s always a bigger undertaking than you expect it to be. But I was, I was okay with, you know, kind of scaling at my own pace. That’s not the case, if you’re if you’re funded, right. But I would suggest for most folks spread the risk around a little bit, you know, bringing bring in at least one or two believers to begin with. And, you know, we can have a whole other discussion about what works and what doesn’t work in terms of raising capital. But try to bring it along one or two believers, and then leverage that into into creating a broader base of support from investors. And, and properly fund your way through. Again, for me, it was different because I’d always owned my own business, I’d never bought businesses that I that I ran, I started businesses that I ran. And so and I wasn’t plugged in, at all, into the into the community of fundraising. And I will tell you this, that I was, I was terrible at getting in front of these folks, because I wanted to talk about the features of my product. And, you know, this is so awesome, and it solves this problem. And it does this and that. And really, I found that they were looking for, or maybe they weren’t looking for, but they were more responsive to a lot of hyperbole about, you know, everyone on the planet is going to want one of these. And that means we’re going to have a trillion dollar business, and it’s going to be bigger than I yatta yatta yatta. And we all see the impact of that, you know, there are products that are created and businesses that are launched, were that have very vocal CEOs and full of hyperbole, full of excitement full of this and that full of a lot
Nathan Whittacre 12:50
Some of them are going to jail. Right?
Costa Lakoumentas 12:51
Some of them are going to jail.right now.
Nathan Whittacre 12:55
Sam Bankman-Fried just got sentenced this week. So that’s definitely a concern.
Costa Lakoumentas 13:01
Yeah, absolutely. And 130 years, that’s what he’s facing is I mean, it hasn’t been the sentecing yet, and it shows you the gravity of it, because, you know, people are always looking, especially on the investment side, they’re always looking for some way to grow their their capital, they don’t want to take a big risk. But, you know, these folks speak very confidently about their future. And well, you know, sometimes it doesn’t pan out that way. So don’t
Nathan Whittacre 13:27
Don’t lie about it. Certainly, that’s so, so I think what you’re talking about is more on the angel investment side, get a few angels to help you, you know, get through some of this additional process. If you can’t bootstrap it yourself, you know, find some believers to get, you know, past it to a viable product. Is that Is that what you’re saying? More?
Costa Lakoumentas 13:48
Ye ah. And I think I think for a lot of them, they’re really looking at you and saying, you know, is this someone I want to invest in the product almost comes in second, you know, it’s yeah, they want to see something compelling, but I think if they see something in you that says, hey, this person’s in it for the long haul, they’re confident they’re capable, then then I think they tend to invest. And those angels that come in are going to unlock the, you know, access to the to the rest of the investment that you need. But you really do need to focus on getting a couple of those folks in the door even though I didn’t for KLIK,
Nathan Whittacre 14:30
And you know, I the same spot with my company. I mean, I can consider it’s a family business. My dad was a little bit of our, you know, Angel, it gave us a $5,000 start, but that certainly wasn’t enough to launch it, you know, the business it is today. So it does take a lot longer, you know, it’s 28 Your path for us to get where we’re at today versus you know, maybe some outside investment would have been a shorter path, but you know, you give up stuff well, you know, one way or another so that’s we’ve learned the same thing.
Costa Lakoumentas 14:57
Yeah, and you know, I think one thing that I discovered earlier on was with a startup, if you make it to year three, that year three is where the flywheel starts to pick up some momentum. And, you know, the phone rings, we used to say, the phone rings, I suppose now, you know, the orders. Things, Shopify tells you that you have an order. But you know, at the three year point, if you’re if you’re doing things correctly, you start to see light at the end of the tunnel, by the five year point, you should be able to be living, you know, almost debt free, or at least not not incurring more debt as you’re growing your business. But these are long periods of time for people to, to, you know, be without any cash flow. So that’s where the investment really plays a role. And yes, if you give up 5,10, 20, 50% of your business, on the quantum, is it worth it? It depends on the business that you’re in.
Nathan Whittacre 15:59
Especially if you need, you know, you got to pay engineers and developers, whatever it may be, I mean, there’s a lot of expense that goes into that, you know, we help consult with a company, it’s almost 20 years ago, now that, you know, I just needed a lot of capital and just struggled finding that capital to to push it forward. And eventually, it never, it didn’t work, because they didn’t have enough capital to make it work. So it’s, it’s interesting that you, you know, that’s a big challenge for you. So
Costa Lakoumentas 16:28
iI can be the best idea on the planet, but that capital is a hard stop. The lack of capital is a hard stop. So yeah, it’s critically important.
Nathan Whittacre 16:38
Yeah, people want to eat, you know, it’s important to pay, you know, pay employees and staff, and you can only get so much free free work, especially out of ourselves, right? So, so you have a product that, you know, obviously was designed for meeting rooms, and, you know, COVID kind of messed all that up. So how, as a as a company, how have you gotten through that dramatic change and how business has happened, or how business runs today?
Costa Lakoumentas 17:10
Well, you know, as much as I’m loathe to recall any of those days. You know, it hit us like a ton of bricks, because our product was made for in person meetings. And, you know, when a dozen people are in a classroom, or four or five people are in a meeting room, they want to share content to the screen, that’s what we were all about. And then all of a sudden, everyone switched over to an really an imperfect solution, which was the video conference call. So now you had teachers struggling with having 24 students on the screen, and some left microphones on and, you know, it was a disaster. And, and so being in the position where we really didn’t have a whole lot happening on the sales front, we looked at what was happening, and decided that it was a perfect opportunity for us to retool our product. Now, you know, it’s a difficult decision to make, because in a sense, everything you’ve invested in the business is caught up in the products that you have already. Right. But suddenly, the market has shifted. So what do you do? Are you going to be the architect of your own demise? You’re going to have to be, and it’s a tough, tough decision. I sympathize with anyone and everyone who’s been in that position. Because you really have to dismantle what you have, and just suck it up and say, you know, this is sunk cost, as we say, right. And business, people have already sunk this cost. Let’s look forward and let’s let’s move forward. So we sat down and with a clean slate and said, Okay, well, screen sharing is one thing, but what about with the people that are located remotely? What about with people in another room? What if we do some form of social distancing? What about hybrid? And what about alternative options to the talking head where you have the teacher framed in just like this, and all you see is the teachers face on the screen, that’s not very engaging. So we kind of rethought the whole thing and went effectively back to the drawing board and created a new product that we call the KLIKBOKS hub. And the new product, of course, allows you to do screen sharing, etc. But it also has a live streaming capability. So at the drop of a hat, we could just you click on the icon, and now you’re live streaming, it has a camera input. So it can accept real HDMI camera, not a USB camera, which is designed really for Near Field most of them for Near Field views like you and I are using right now. But for any camera and in fact, you could even have a production switcher on the front end of that input HDMI input. And in many places they do in a college environment, you know, in lecture halls, etc, you need to, you know, balance many different life sources. So, we effectively created a specification applied a lot of engineering time to it and launched this year, the new KLIKBOKS hub that has all of these capabilities like hybrid conferencing built in multi screen split screen sharing multicast capability. So you have multiple displays in the facility, you can actually be working on all of those displays, along with USB touch back from all of those displays. It goes on and on and on doesn’t necessarily mean much to a consumer. But for those who need this type of product, it’s it’s over the top it’s
Nathan Whittacre 20:49
Yep. Yeah. So that’s a good segue. So how do you how do you bring a new product like this into the market, you know, you have a market presence already, you have a set of customers, those customers have changed, I’m sure, you know, the way that they do business, and now you got to reposition yourself? How do you how do you do that with a product?
Costa Lakoumentas 21:07
The toughest part, certainly for me, and, and by extension, our company is to step out of the engineering feature set mindset and step into the user need. and problem solve. mindset. You know, like, if if I put myself in the shoes of the teacher, you know, the professor in the college classroom? You know, what are my needs? What are my requirements? You know, and when you start thinking of it from that perspective, it changes your thinking about the product overall, because, you know, the, we all have smartphones, and smartphones have lots of different capabilities. And we probably use four of those capabilities. You know, we text we email, we web browse, we occasionally have a call. But what about the GPS that’s built in? What about the inclinometer that’s built in? What about the, you know, accelerometer that’s built in, that allows you to do all kinds of other stuff, we probably don’t use those features. And it’s the same with this kind of product, if you make it, that it’s complex. The feature set doesn’t matter. It just matters to the user. Like, here’s my problem, solve it quickly. Right. And so, so that’s the toughest part is to get into the that mindset, the user mindset, once you’ve done that, then you really need to craft your message. And again, for us, we had to go back and practically Undo, and you know what it’s like, Nathan, you know, you build a website, you build content, you build videos, you have this enormous amount of intellectual property out there. And suddenly you’re chaging.
Nathan Whittacre 23:01
You’ve got to scrap it. Yeah.
Costa Lakoumentas 23:02
You’re shifting gears. And, and you’ve got to be again, prepared for that. Right, and you have to suck it up and say, we had to pivot. And so how well will we pivot? Right? And how fully will we pivot? And will we do it with the enthusiasm that we had when we founded this company? And that’s really the key. And, you know, some days we all get up in the morning and go, Oh, no, I have to finish writing that copy for me and nobody else can write it right? You’re the only person who has all of the components to write it, right? There’s not an engineer who’s gonna write it it’s gonna be you because you think partly engineering, partly sales, partly marketing, partly end user. So but it’s just like anything else. If you’re motivated enough to start your own business, you’re motivated enough to make it a go?
Nathan Whittacre 23:56
That’s that reminded me i There’s an article that was written a few years ago and I think that can often as a business owner, myself, of the guy that’s writing a lion, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen or read this article. It’s quite it’s quite funny. But it’s, it’s a guy riding a lion and everybody on the outside is like, Oh, look how awesome this guy is, like amazing. He’s got so much courage. He’s riding a lion. And the guy sitting on the lion is thinking how did the hell did I get on this lion and how do I get off without being eaten? Isn’t that the way it is sometimes to be a business owner you know, everybody looks, He’s got to be totally together you know things are working well and then you know, you’re thinking to yourself, oh my goodness, I got so much so many responsibilities and so many things going on that just becomes overwhelming.
Costa Lakoumentas 24:41
Indeed, indeed. And and that’s an actually a great analogy because you’re literally on that line, the lines going nuts and you’re hanging on for dear life, but you’re even questioning why you’re there. Whoa, what is this one I signed up for? And yes, it is. And he has the right gets better than write does get better eventually. But you’ve got to have that stick to itiveness, you’ve got to have that that will to actually stick with it and run with it. And not everybody has that. And it’s okay. It doesn’t matter. It’s not, it’s not a, you know, the definition of a, of a great person versus a mediocre person. That’s not, let’s, let’s not grade ourselves that way. Let’s not put those people on a pedestal, who, you know, take on the big mission, and they invest all their time and money, and they sleep on the floor and whatever, yeah, if it works for you, great. If it doesn’t work for you, if you’re an artist, if you’re, you know, whatever, hallelujah, you know, you have to achieve some form of Zen in your life. I happen to be the guy who wants to take stuff apart, learn how it works, and make other stuff. That’s my own, you know, my own condition?
Nathan Whittacre 25:56
Whether it’s technology or, or businesses, right, it’s, it’s a little bit of everything. So yeah, so what, what’s in the future for your company? Where direction? Are you trying to go? What what markets? Are you working on penetrating? And, you know, where do you go from here?
Costa Lakoumentas 26:13
Sure. Well, you know, I always used to say to our product management folks, you know, whatever product you’re creating, think in terms of serving your existing customers needs. Because you’ve worked so hard, you built a brand, and the brand is really, in my view, it’s a conveyor belt, you build a conveyor belt into your customer’s premises. And maybe you make mobile phones. And so you put the mobile phone on the conveyor belt, and it arrives, and they’re happy with your product. But imagine how many more products they have, how many other products they’re using. And if they’ve already if you’ve already built trust with them, and you’ve already got the channel, all of that is encapsulated in my concept of a conveyor belt, if you’ve already got the conveyor belt, then bring complementary products to the table that build on your trust, build on your credibility. So you know, I worked for a company many years ago, where they started out by making audio mixers. And, you know, they became a household name and audio mixers, affordable, good quality, and well thought out mixers. And the founder was an eccentric guy, who total musician like total audio guy, and he was like, I want to make great speakers. And all the experts said, Are you crazy? You make mixers? How are you going to make speakers? How are you going to sell speakers? You’re crazy, isn’t? Well, no, I’m not because I need speakers. For my setup, I needed a mixer, I made a mixer, I need speakers so to other people. And he brought up loudspeakers and they became such a huge hit. Almost overnight, it transformed, the company would have added another 50% On to the business. And, and really, it taught me a lesson. And that is that continue to build that relationship and continue to add the services, the goods, the other things that people need in that in that business. So if it was in the audio business, you needed a mixer, you’re obviously you’re going to need speakers at some point. And the trust was enough already in the core brand product offering. So people go if it’s coming from these guys, I’m gonna I’m gonna give it a shot. And I think it applies in your business as well as in my business. You know, you can continue to expand your offering and offer cloud solutions or, you know, whatever it is, I don’t know, your your
Nathan Whittacre 28:55
security, you know, internet boy, we add, we’ve added on a lot of other things, and it’s been successful for us, right, and
Costa Lakoumentas 29:02
you’re the trusted source that people go to for this critical IT component. That’s the backbone of every business. And by the way, you know, this is maybe a conversation for another, another session. But, you know, I worked for a company where we’re a global company, $350 million a year business, manufacturing, the China exporting to the whole world, and we were hacked, and our whole network was brought down. Our servers that were located in Hong Kong were wiped. And so we didn’t even have phones because all our phones are in voice over IP. Right. So so, you know,
Nathan Whittacre 29:40
a story that has too often told, you know, we have three three companies in Nevada right now that just had that incident. Really scary.
Costa Lakoumentas 29:50
And, you know, you know what really came to light through that and through that dramatic period, that we didn’t have a part partner that we could rely on to help us out of it. And so now in the middle of this explosion, we’re trying to seek out a partner to help us with our it because we, we thought we could do self serve, you know, we could do it ourselves and this and that, and whatever. And we were woefully unequipped to do, we racked up a bill of over $400,000 with an outside provider in a court and over the course of three weeks, I mean, it’s a big story that we’ve really probably ought to talk about some other time. But, but you know, once you’re the trusted provider, people in business, they don’t want to stray from that they want to stick with you. And so it’s the same situation with us, if we’re a trusted provider of wireless screen sharing and collaboration products, then, and they’re already buying other products, they’re complementary, or at least are somewhat connected in terms of application in terms of intellectual property, in terms of system deployment, then, you know, we’re going to offer those products, offering a keyboard and mouse is not necessarily, you know, going to add value. But if we added a some other component, which I won’t name right now, because there are a few. But that’s complimentary, then we can build on that credibility in that brand equity that we already have.
Nathan Whittacre 31:23
I think that’s great. I mean, as business owners, we have to be thinking about that, as you know, what other incumbents are in, you know, our customers are buying from that are interconnecting with us and provide that utility of becoming a single provider for that whole solution. And, you know, I think, as the world has gotten more complex, you know, buyers want simplicity. And one of the ways to simplify it as having less vendors, less people to deal with, and endless problems, you know, interconnection between different vendors is always an issue. And, and, you know, coming up with that solution is a great, great way to look at it.
Costa Lakoumentas 32:00
Yeah, and I think it benefits, it benefits hardware, businesses, and software businesses. And, you know, pretty much any service provider, you know, if you’re, if you’re making, you know, coffee, you can offer, you know, a pastry to go with it. And that’s complimentary. And that’s great. And maybe there’s something else you can offer that is a little bit outside of the box. But if you have the latitude to experiment, then then that should be 10% of your activity of your new product activity should be experimenting also, in something that might be a little bit off the charts, but holds potential.
Nathan Whittacre 32:42
That’s great advice. Great advice. So well, we’re excited for you, you know, your product launches, we’ll we’ll be watching to see what else you can come up with and really appreciate the conversation. I think I’ve learned something. And I hopefully our listeners have learned a bunch today, too, you know, maybe there’s some ideas that are brewing in people’s heads that they just don’t know how to get started with it. So you had some great suggestions and really appreciate it.
Costa Lakoumentas 33:05
It’s been my pleasure. And I really, I would encourage anyone who’s got an idea to actually try to pursue it, at the very least, because how many times we’ve been in our lives in a position where some you see a new product go, I thought of that, I thought that that would have been a good thing, but I didn’t do anything about it. And so if you have that moment where you think about a product, go at least the first step, create that PRD define the product, and see if you can’t get other people interested in it, and move forward. That’s my advice to everybody. Oh, and one more thing. When I signed into this, I only entered my first name, I don’t just go by Costa. I don’t expect people to know me by just Costa. It’s Costa Lakoumentas, and I’m the founder and CEO of KLIKBOKS, K L I K B O K S. All ks no C’s. So, apologies for not signing in fully. Yeah,
Nathan Whittacre 34:07
we’ll make sure that we get links to your your site and some contact information about how to get a hold of you and your company in the description down below, below the video and in the process. So awesome. Excellent. Well, I really appreciate your time. I have gotten a lot out of it. And we’ll maybe have another discussion in the future about security and, and what you’ve experienced in your company. So again, thank you so much for your time today.
Costa Lakoumentas 34:31
Entirely. My pleasure Nathan. Thank you very much and thanks to all your viewers and listeners.